QMI-INS-094 · c. 105–125 AH
Inscription of al-Walīd b. Yazīd, Quṣayr ʿAmra
نقش الوليد بن يزيد في قصير عمرة
Quṣayr ʿAmra, Jordan
- اللهم أصلح الوليد بن يزيد بالصلاحية عبا[د …]
- لحق الصالحين وأحطه ببرد [الرحم] يا ولي العالمين
- ولأمته خلد […] الملة يوم […] جميع ع[…]
O God, make al-Walīd b. Yazīd virtuous through [...] [his] servants ... [Join him to] the righteous. Surround him with the tenderness of kinship, O Protector of the worlds! For his community, eternal ... the religion on the day of ... the whole of ...
Quṣayr ʿAmra is a bathhouse of the Umayyad period in the Jordanian badiya, with painted scenes on its walls. Its inscriptions were studied by Jaussen and Savignac in 1909 and by Imbert from 1989. Only a fragment of the first line was read before 2012, when the restoration of the western aisle showed the first line clearly, and the inscription was re-read in May 2012 during the removal of a later restoration. The earlier restorers had changed the lettering in places, so Imbert bases his reading on the state of the paint before that restoration.
Imbert reads the first line as an invocation (“O God, make al-Walīd b. Yazīd virtuous”), where the name is given with its patronymic and without any title. The second line seems to ask God to join the prince to the righteous and to surround him with the tenderness of kinship (bard al-raḥm), ending with the vocative “O Protector of the worlds” (yā walī al-ʿālamīn). The third line is almost entirely lost. The readings of the second and third lines are tentative, and Imbert warns that the restored paint cannot be used to verify letter forms.
Date. The inscription names al-Walīd without the title of caliph, and Imbert reads it as the prince's invocation. al-Walīd was designated heir under his uncle Hishām (reigned 105–125 AH, 724–743 CE), became caliph in 125 AH (743 CE), and died in 126 AH (744 CE). The inscription therefore falls between about 105 and 125 AH (c. 724–743 CE).
This is the only known text that names al-Walīd b. Yazīd, according to Imbert. It is one of five painted Arabic inscriptions at Quṣayr ʿAmra, which also include the basmala in a tabula ansata, a text on the baldaquin over the throne naming the “heir presumptive of the Muslims and Muslim women”, a text naming Abraham in the eastern lunette, and bilingual Greek and Arabic names of rulers in the scene of the kings. Taken together, the texts suggest a private programme of invocations, not an official inscription. The prince's name is the reason the bath is linked to his household.
Source: Frédéric Imbert, “Le prince al-Walīd et son bain: itinéraires épigraphiques à Quṣayr ʿAmra,” in memoriam Oleg Grabar, pp. 322–356 (journal and year to be confirmed).